The history of Arlington County's transit-oriented development is explained in a new 11 minute video that features Planning Director Bob Brosnan. The video covers how the county has applied the principles of smart growth in Arlington.

"Forty years ago Arlington came up with a vision," Brosnan explains. "That vision was to focus growth in about 11 percent of the county -- two corridors -- to focus high density, mixed-use development within a quarter mile of the two Metro systems to preserve the remaining 89 percent of the county between single family, garden apartments and the open space that was out there and then to define hard edges to this existing single family areas for the most part on either side of the corridors and then to provide transitions to those. We set a land-use plan in place that said what the board's desire, general uses and densities, were."

The vision and the fact that subsequent city officials kept faith with that vision is why…

The Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution has released a report on job decentralization and the challenges of the poor as more and more jobs move to the suburbs.

"Understanding the association between employment decentralization and the suburbanization of poverty is important because of the continued growth of the suburban poor," write the report's authors. "In 2005, the suburban poor outnumbered their city counterparts by almost one million. And during the first year of the recession that began in 2007, suburbs added more than twice as many poor people as did their cities."

The report, "Job Sprawl and the Suburbanization of Poverty" by Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll, suggests that the responsiveness of the poor to the outward movement of jobs, particularly racial and ethnic minority poor, does not appear to be as strong as that for the population…

Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium has released a study that proposes ways to transform suburban multifamily housing into more livable, less congested suburban communities by making them multi-modal and shifting the planning, development and design practices.

The fact that these housing developments can reach densities of 30 to 40 units/acre and are usually located along arterials and adjacent to commercial and retail development creates a potential model of smart growth in suburbia.

The theory that the mortgage default crisis was not only a consequence of lax lending standards or predatory lending or uninformed consumers, but also a result of urban sprawl has received important empirical support from a study by sponsored by the National Resources Defense Council.

Transit-oriented development is valuable for transit, increasing the number of potential riders near stations. But what impact does situating a mixed-use, higher density project in a suburban setting have on nearby single-family neighborhoods?
The Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University sought to answer that question in its study, "Effect of Suburban Transit Oriented Developments on Residential Property Values."
"The development of successful transit-oriented developments often encounters several barriers," the study notes. "These barriers include: a lack of inter-jurisdictional cooperation, auto-oriented design that favors park and ride lot over ridership-generating uses, and community opposition. The community opposition may be more vocal in suburban areas where residents of predominately single-family neighborhoods may feel that…

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The Half-Mile Circles blog is a place to share information about recent research, innovations and other issues related to TOD and livable communities. We also invite experts to talk about their work. Combined with Jeff Wood's The Other Side of the Tracks, the Half-Mile Circles blog is an opportunity for a daily dose of TOD, and allows you to weigh in with your own opinions. Usual blog rules apply; please keep the comment threads civil. To submit an expert article, contact Jeff Wood